March 4, 2010

That story makes me instantly anticipate domestic violence foes scrambling to defend the woman. They'll go for the conventional, reflexive assumption is that she was a longtime victim of domestic violence herself who after much abuse and fear finally resorted to killing. But... the template doesn't fit. The couple were married for only 5 days. And she was 45, and he was 26.

As to "a group fighting domestic violence", she owns its website (hosted by GoDaddy, with the banner ads across the top) and declared herself President of the group, as well as contact and lobbyist, on the Federal registration forms.

She also registered with Georgia.

She seems to be diligent on the paperwork, but I don't think this is a real group; she certainly doesn't seem to have been interviewed and hired, for example. As to why she is registering a group of one that doesn't do much, I don't know.

I think this is unlikely... and I say this as someone who more or less agrees that the preacher's wife who got off should have got off. (Or rather... no one should get off even if the murder is more or less justified, but since we do that sort of thing she probably counted as "trapped" on several levels, and the community involved likely understood their own guilt and contribution to trapping her, which is why they were inclined to let her off.)

If the article is even more or less accurate they've got all those planning ahead things... you don't normally carry a gun in your nightie after all and they weren't even in their home. Hard to claim she wasn't planning to shoot him. And there were witnesses to her demeanor afterward. Being married 5 days isn't the same as being beaten down for years upon years. And the age difference implies a power difference that will make her the dominant party in people's minds. She's not likely to come across as a sympathetic figure to a jury... not even a jury of her peers, which would also be a jury of mothers of 20 year old boys. And, to reference back to the preacher's wife, the community is not at all likely to feel that they are responsible.

" As to why she is registering a group of one that doesn't do much, I don't know."

Tom, could it have been a money raising scam? Won't many people donate to such a cause?

Or could it be simply a genuine concern about an issue with which she struggled. Isn't one of the 12 step truths that in helping others to overcome our same issue we help ourselves to become stronger against our affliction?

This case aside, I tend to sympathize with long-abused wives who have suffered horrendous physical and mental torture at the hands of their husbands and use pre-meditated murder as the only way out. OTOH, statistics show--NOW to the contrary--that wives physically attack their husbands with the same frequency as their husbands assault them. Fatalities being fewer only due the disparity in physical strength.

My contempt/rage is reserved for those who insist that we must understand/excuse the actions of women as being warped by "abused wife" syndrome leading to faulty reasoning out of desperation and fear while at the same time steadfastly denying the statistics on female assault frequency in the bargain.

She is an example of someone who had no money to pay a lawyer to use the courts. So she did her own Final Decree pro se. In Atlanta the black men are not that faithful to their wives. I expect that she found out that he was scaming her for money and that he had other girl friends.

BTW the names of Organisations said to fight social problems in Atlanta are ALWAYS fronts for Government Grants to fronts for voter organising networks. She was trying to earn a living the new fashioned way.